Yesterday the Ruby on Rails team broke the news: the alternative Ruby web application framework, Merb, will be merged into Ruby on Rails 3.0. Merb, which was already closely patterned after Rails, brings performance, modularity, and better integration with alternative JavaScript and ORM frameworks to the table. The default Rails configuration will still be the "full stack" framework, which uses ActiveRecord and Prototype, but there will also be a "Rails Core" with the ability to opt into specific other (e.g. JavaScript or ORM) frameworks as desired.